himself with the living insect. As a classifier, he is
beyond compare; and that is all. We ask him to examine a Bee, the first
that comes to hand, and to name her trade from her tools.

Come, be honest: could he? Who would dare put him to such a test? Has
personal experience not fully convinced us that the mere examination
of the insect can tell us nothing about its particular industry? The
baskets on its legs and the brush on its abdomen will certainly inform
us that it collects honey and pollen; but its special art will remain an
utter secret, notwithstanding all the scrutiny of the microscope. In our
own industries, the plane denotes the joiner, the trowel the mason, the
scissors the tailor, the needle the seamstress. Are things the same
in animal industry? Just show us, if you please, the trowel that is
a certain sign of the mason-insect, the chisel that is a positive
characteristic of the carpenter-insect, the iron that is an authentic
mark of the pinking-insect; and as you show them, say:

'This one cuts leaves; that one bores wood; that other mixes cement.'

And so on, specifying the trade from the tool.

You cannot do it, no one can; the worker's speciality remains an
impenetrable secret until direct observation intervenes. Does not
this incapacity, even of the most expert, proclaim loudly that animal
industry, in its infinite variety, is due to other causes besides the
possession of tools? Certainly, each of those specialists requires
implements; but they are rough and ready implements, good for all sorts
of purposes, like the tool of Franklin's workman. The same notched
mandible that reaps cotton, cuts leaves and moulds pitch also kneads
mud, scrapes decayed wood and mixes mortar; the same tarsus that
manufactures cotton and disks cut out of leaves is no less clever at the
art of making earthen partitions, clay turrets and gravel mosaics.

What then is the reason of these thousand industries? In the light of
facts, I can see but one: imagination governing matter. A primordial
inspiration, a talent antecedent to the actual form, directs the tool
instead of being subordinate to it. The instrument does not determine
the manner of industry; the tool does not make the workman. At the
beginning there is an object, a plan, in view of which the animal acts,
unconsciously. Have we eyes to see with, or do we see because we have
eyes? Does the function create the organ, or the organ the function? Of
the two alternat